Author's note: Told you I'd write this chapter faster!

"I was always different, somehow the dark guy who no one liked. I was a bully, and a jerk. But-" and here Obsidian paused dramatically,"-I still had a conscience, and I knew when to stop. Right, guys?" he added sarcastically.

Coconut snorted, but Melon had a kind of sad smile on his face. "Yeah, you were a jerk," he said, in an almost amused tone.

Blueberry scratched away in her blue notebook, and Strawberry leaned forward. The girls were listening intently, and it had come as a huge shock to them to learn that Obsidian had once been the boys' friend. Huck scratched away at a piece of paper, doodling pictures of two certain people doing certain things in a certain place - it was from Blueberry's notebook, and so was the pen. "Go on."

The dark-haired boy suddenly looked uneasy. "One day, I had a huge fight with the cops. These dudes here bailed me out and took me home," he gestured at the boys. "We argued so ferociously about justice and stuff that I decided that I couldn't take it anymore. I left that night, taking almost everything to do with me - photos, belongings, it was like I had never been there. And here's where I can't go on, because I don't know why you guys are lying."

"Whatddya mean, lying? We're not lying!" Lime protested, indignant.

"Oh, yeah?" Obsidian countered snappily. "What about the very obvious note I left?!"

Avocado Smoothie finally barged into the conversation. "What note are you talking about?! There was nothing that you left us!"

The criminal smiled sarcastically. "Even you, Avocado? Really, guys? This is getting-" but then he suddenly stopped, and his eyes widened. "Wait, wait - you didn't see it at all? I left it on the table!"

Apple frowned. "Dude, we're not trying to confuse you, us, or the girls, or anybody. We didn't see anything."

Obisidian looked like a different person. His breathing was shallow, his hair slightly messy, and in his eyes actual fear. He pounded the table with his fists. "You're kidding. Then all those attacks I sent - the berrykins on watch!"

"They died, Obby," Melon whispered, his voice cracking in the middle. Raspberry moved closer to him, and leaned her head on his shoulder. He put his head on hers. "They're dead."

"So you didn't get the note."

Plum sighed. "No, we didn't."

"So you didn't get the instructions."

Huck glanced up from his doodling. "What instructions?"

"Obby" sunk into his chair. His eyes were defeated. "Guys, I'll explain everything from the beginning, okay?"

"I grew up here, like you all, without parents. I was curious. How were we created? How was everything created? No one seemed to know what a parent was. I bet you do now," he said, gesturing around him.

He was right. Before she'd crossed the scar in the earth, Blueberry had never thought about her birth, or the thought of her even having relatives. Those concepts just didn't exist in her head. But then she'd been transformed into a teenager, and the word "family" suddenly appeared in her head. Who was she, really?

Obsidian continued. "But I did - I'd always known. I bet for the boys here, who've never crossed the Scar, they just realized what 'family' is." The boys nodded slowly, because he had guessed right. They had no idea what family was until the girls came. Then the concept had slowly entered their head. Um, as well as a couple of "ideas".

"Of course, I was frustrated that no one understood me. I tried to do everything to make your minds work. Sometimes I took it slow in case it hit you too hard and you had emotional trauma or something, and sometimes I just outright talked about our origins. But it never worked. I even said the word 'parents' once, but you only thought I was talking gibberish.

"I lost hope, and I took it out on others. I didn't want to, I didn't need to, but I was just lost in despair. I always went out exploring, but I never went beyond the volcanoes. There was a feeling, an instinct that told me to turn back. It wasn't my time. Not yet. And so I would always return.

"But that time when they all cornered me and talked about justice and stuff, about equality, about fairness...that really ticked me off. What would they know about fairness when my whole life had been unfair? And so I left.

"Now about that time, the city was a mess. Citizens argued and fought amongst themselves about justice and stuff, mayors were murdered, plenty of unfair crime. No one was united. They had no pride as a city.

"And I couldn't stand it. So I finally went beyond the Scar, I came to the Berry Bitty Cities, and I used some mushrooms and the magic that makes berrykins talk to create monsters to attack the City in the Ash. I figured that I would have to give you a reason to unite as one. And you did.

"But I left a note the day I left, on the table - it taught you how to revive people who were injured. No one was supposed to die." Obsidian looked down, and Blueberry could have sworn he was crying.

The silence that followed stretched for eternity, interrupted only by the swish of water upstairs.